Author: pvbella

“Nonetheless, all of us die-hard Bears fans, the mayor included, know and believe that the Chicago Bears should remain in Chicago,” the statement read. “So, now that the land deal has closed, we have an even better opportunity to continue making the business case as to why the Bears should remain in Chicago and why adaptations to Soldier Field can meet and exceed all of the Bears’ future needs.”

“There is simply no doubt that the economic benefits for the team of staying in a reimagined Soldier Field significantly outweigh those gained in a move to the suburbs,” it continued. “Due to the Bears’ legal restrictions in the pre-purchase phase, the city was unable to engage in direct negotiations with the Bears while the land was under contract. Now that the deal has been completed, we look forward to negotiating and convincing the Bears that the team’s best future remains in our beloved city of Chicago.” (Lori Lightfoot/NBC Chicago)

The Chicago Bears announced they closed on the former Arlington Heights Racetrack property. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot issued the above statement shortly after the announcement. She should change her last name to Lighthead. One could wonder if she takes magic mushrooms and lives in an alternate reality.

The Bears fakeball team will leave Chicago. They have been planning this for decades. The Bears queen and her gamboling grandchildren hate Chicago. They are moving out. Good and put a pox on the House of McCaskey.

Worse, the cheapskate chiseling McCaskeys want a 40 year tax assessment freeze. Hopefully there will be push back on that. “When state lawmakers recently created a fund to attract companies to locate in Illinois, they went out of their way to prohibit its use for pro sports teams that relocate within the state… Gov. J.B. Pritzker has also voiced his objection to state subsidies, saying, “It’s not our obligation as the state to step in and provide major funding, and I certainly don’t want to burden taxpayers with, you know, major support for a private business.” (Chicago Tribune)

The Bears already burdened Chicago tax payers. The renovations of Soldier Field cost $690 million. Taxpayers are on the hook for $432 million plus interest of that. We got ripped off.

Lightfoot is delusional if she thinks the McCaskeys will accept any of her pipe dream plans to stay here. Worse, she is like other Bears fans. You know, the typical drooling knuckle dragging, bark chewing backwoods peckerheads. This year, the fakeball team was the worst in the National Fakeball League. The McCaskey’s will reap the same equal share of kachingos from the NFL as the other teams- billions of dollars. Why should they win games or go to the postseason? Why should they draft quality players? Why should they do anything for the fans? They only care about one thing and one thing only, money and the money keeps rolling in.

The McCaskeys are not dumb. The fans are. The McCaskeys will take advantage of them to squeeze as much money from them as possible. Then they may sell the team. The rumor is that is their long-range plan. Rumors, like myths, lore, and conspiracies, have a grain of truth to them.

By the way, the McCaskeys do not live in Chicago. The burbs are where they were born and bred. They live in the burbs and exurbs. They are not our people. They can take their miserable team and its moronic fans and leave. The door should kick them hard in the ass hard on the way out.

Lightfoot should concentrate on the deterioration of Chicago under her watch instead of a bunch of gamboling dotards and their dowager queen grandmother. Public safety is in the toilet. Public transportation is in the toilet. Everything Lightfoot touches gets flushed. She accomplished nothing. Yet, she thinks she can appeal to voters by foolishly appealing to keep the Bears team here. That is not going to happen.

It is a beautiful winter day in Chicago. There is no ugly, dirty or yellow snow on the ground. It is 49 degrees and sunny. My Uber driver was wearing cargo shorts.

Today is Super Bowl, Sunday, fakeball’s annual con game to bring in big bucks from advertisers and backwoods bark-chewing peckerhead fans. I will not be watching that parlor game.

Basketball and hockey season does not bode well for the Bulls and Hawks. It seems this past year was not good for Chicago teams. Both the Sox and Cubs had lackluster seasons, too. As a Cubs fan, I adhere to the motto, “Wait til next year.” That goes for the Bulls and Hawks too. At least Tony La Russa will not be returning to the White Sox. It was a mistake to hire that miserable washed-up has been.

I keep listening to the mayoral candidates. Not one of them has a short-term plan to make Chicago safer. Most of their solutions are long-term, maybe decades away. In the sort term, they provide very little, except firing David “Tex” Brown. Then what? Aside from criminality, the criminal justice system is broken in Chicago. Kim Foxx refuses to prosecute violent criminals, and judges release violent criminals on low or no bonds and/or the failed electronic monitoring system.

Even if one of the candidates had a solution to crime, it would do no good. If the prosecutors and judges are siding with the criminals, all the policing in the world will not curb violent crime.

I have been following the Chinese balloons imbroglio- Balloongate. The U.S., with the cooperation of the Canadian government, shot down a third balloon over the Yukon. The crazies on the right have their macho panties in a twist because, well, because, um, that’s how they roll. The crazies on the left do not care, as it does not fit in with their political nonsensical narrative.

What should have been the proper response? Laughing at and making fools out of the Chinese government. The Eleventh Commandment is, “Thou shalt not get caught.” China got caught red-handed. (Pun intended) We should make great fun of their feeble attempts. The White House should have brought in some comedy writers and graphic artists to create the government’s response to the failure of the Chinese to keep their operation secret or their failure to build stealth balloons. I mean, Balloongate should be renamed Deflategate, and the administration should turn it into a big joke(s) on China. In these dire ridiculous political times, we all need a good laugh.

I am writing this in my office away from home, my neighborhood saloon. The bar pest is here. He put a lot of dough in the jukebox. All suicide songs- about love and love lost. F**king guy does not have the sense of a gnat. People do not want to hear that crap where alcohol is involved. If he plays Andy Williams, I may have to do something drastic. I hope he does not start talking to me. F**king guy starts in and never stops talking.

Enjoy this weather while it lasts. February can be a cruel month, and we still have a couple of weeks left.

Free at last, free at last, thank the Great Comedian, I am free at last. The Facebook Police locked me up for 24 hours for a crime against humor. Zuckerberg’s Gestapo is inhumane, putting you into solitary confinement for the duration of your term. Now, that I am free, laissez le bon temps rouler.

Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan is retiring from the Chicago Police Department. Reports are he is taking a job with Google. Deenihan’s departure is the Chicago Police Department’s significant loss. I wish him the best in his future endeavors.

There are rumors David Tex Brown may be on his way out. Supposedly, the department is creating a legacy document- what ever the f**k that is, for him. If true, it is the best news the citizens of this city had in three years. Brown is an abject failure. He is one of the many mercenary former police executives to get hired, soak their employers for big bucks, then move on. Brown learned nothing about our city. He is a Know Nothing. He will probably land in some other city with naïve politicians and ruin their police department.

David Brown disgraced the uniform of the Chicago Police Department. He is a disgrace to this city. Legacy book? His legacy is one of failure from day one. I hope the people putting that book together list his monumental failures. It would be apt. They do not have to have kiss his a** niceties. Just tell it like it is. Unlike Deenihan, a true professional, I wish Brown, a true unprofessional, the worst.

I listened to or watched a few of the debates. Mayor Lori Lightfoot is unhinged. She does not have the temperament to be mayor of this great city. She proved it during her term. Her biggest sin was hiring a dumb cowpoke from Texas to run the Chicago Police Department to the ground. Her administration and stewardship of Chicago have been one failure after another. The problem is some of her opponents are worse than her. They have no constructive ideas for turning the ship around, especially in public safety.

To paraphrase the Chicago Tribune, when it was a real newspaper :

‘For Chicago Lightfoot has meant filth, obscenity, idiocy and bankruptcy…. She has given the city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery, barbaric crime, triumphant hoodlumism, and a dejected citizenship. She nearly ruined the property and extinguished the pride of the city. She made Chicago a byword for the collapse of American civilization. In her attempt to continue this she excelled herself as a liar and defamer of character.’

Chicago is not safe. Public transportation is not safe. There is not one safe neighborhood left in Chicago. Lightfoot ruined the public safety sector. She has nothing good to run on. Her worst mistake was cowardly caving to Cook County Democrat President, Toni Preckwinkle, to stop criticizing State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. She then endorsed the city’s major driver of crime and her former enemy for reelection. Chicago mayors should not be cowards.

We can define Lightfoot’s reign as mayor as ineptitude. During the debates, she attacks her opponents, especially Paul Vallas and Chuey Garcia, both who are leading her in the polls. She offers no solutions because she has none. All Lightfoot has are excuses for her failures. Maybe the dog really did eat her homework.

No one gets off this orb alive. Over the past few months, I get emails or social media posts about the deaths of people I know or worked with more often lately. I get nostalgic, especially over the people I worked with. I think about what we did together or the nights after work when we had a few beers, played pool, or just let off steam. Many moved to the far suburbs or out of state. We rarely saw each other over the years. Yet, it seems like yesterday we did.

The times I run into old friends are at the few wakes I attend. It seems like wakes and weddings are social occasions to meet old friends. The stiff in the casket is forgotten.

A few groups of former workers have monthly breakfasts or lunches. I never go. Most times, they are too far from where I live. Also, they turn into remember-when sessions. I do not need to relive the past, as great, horrible, or terrible as it may have been. There is another issue. Like anything, there are or were people I disliked. Some I still do, though they are not aware of it. I do not want to be in their company. I am fussy about who I associate with, especially at my age.

The Great Comedian will eventually send his last joke, the Grim Reaper, for my soul. I left instructions that under no circumstances do I want a wake and funeral. Just have my remains tossed in the furnace. If any money is left over, throw a party, and invite whoever is still alive. I wrote my obituary. Hell, I hate those boring treacly obits.

The other day was Ground Hog Day. Whoever came up with that should suffer from an eternal terminal case of crotch itch. I dream of the day when hordes of groundhogs invade a home in the wee hours, drag a naked person out of bed, haul his/her or whatever pronoun they use naked ass out of bed, and toss them out into below-zero weather to find out if they see their shadow.

Major League Baseball spring training starts on February 24^th, three weeks from now. Baseball season is around the corner, and I can’t wait. I love baseball, though I am getting to despise some owners. They are getting just as bad as the fake football owners. What I also dislike is the cost of going to a ball game. In the past, baseball games were for all people. Just about anyone could afford to attend some games throughout the season. Now, even the bleachers and general admission tickets are pricey. You need big bucks to eat or have a beer. I will splurge once or twice to go to a game because there is nothing like watching a baseball game at the park. My other best place to watch games is in a saloon. At least I can afford the beer.

There are probably only a few weeks left for winter. March is around the corner with milder weather. The older I get, the more I hate winter. It makes me more cantankerous than usual, which causes inconsistency in me. Consistency is one hallmark of excellence. I hate to be inconsistent.

Chicago politics is like fairy tales. Politicians start their campaign with, “If elected, I promise…” When elected, they break their promises. It is all once upon a time with few happy endings.

The mayoral race is heating, and there are still nine candidates in the race. No one has dropped out yet. During the debates, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is acting like a schoolyard bully, defending her indefensible term and pouncing on her perceived flaws of the others.

I live in a liberal to progressive neighborhood. Very few of the people I talk to are voting for Lightfoot. They no longer feel safe and are angry about it. My daughter is angry too. She hates to have to rely on rides, call her mother for a ride, or take an Uber when she is out at night versus walking to and from her destinations.

I do not know who I am voting for. I know I am not voting for Lightfoot again. Failure is her only option, and I will not vote for that. The other candidates are a mess of good, and bad ideas. Some have political baggage. But I will vote. Once again, I will hold my nose and vote for the least odious candidate. Lightfoot is counting on the traditional low turnout, usually in the 30s% range. We cannot allow this. Every voter should cast a ballot. We need to oust her from office.

On to another subject. I hate customer service surveys. I never take them. My position is if they want my time and effort, they should pay me or, in the case of utility companies, give me a hefty discount on my next bill. I am a professional, and professionals get paid. Once in a while, just for kicks, I will take a political survey. I always lie . n those. Politicians are liars, so I feel I should play the same game. You know, do unto others…

Once again, this week, I was victimized by the bar pest. This one came over while I was working. He started a conversation and would not stop talking. He went on and on and on about every subject that came to his pea brain. No matter how much I tried to ignore this horse’s ass, he made it impossible. Worse, he loads the jukebox up with suicide music, those treacly love songs, or sad songs about lost love. It makes me want to rip my guts open with a broken bottle.

I am working on a photo project and found some photos I thought I had lost. I went to interview a printer who specializes in fine art prints to use for the project. He was condescending and treated me like I was wasting his time. I love doing business locally but found a fine art printer in another state. They are who I will use. I dislike doing business with people who mistreat me. It is their company’s loss, as this is a very expensive proposition. One way or another, word will get back to his employer.

Here is a sampling of the project:

The weather is like a yoyo. Arctic one day and balmy in the 30s the next. Chicago weather is like its politics. You never know what it will be or how long it will last. The older I get, the more I hate winter. I can tell I live in a privileged neighborhood. I used to have young people stop by and offer to shovel my snow. No more. Mommy and daddy give them large enough allowances to stay home on playing on their devices. These privileged kids will never know the hard work it takes to make a buck in this society. They will expect their bucks to be handed to them on a silver platter with ice cream and a cherry on top. Their parents are failing them by not imbuing in them a hard work ethic. As Mr. T used to say, “I pity the fool(s).

Stay warm, for we are in for sub-zero temps tomorrow.

Well, full winter is finally here. Cold, snow, and the temps will drop to arctic degrees. So, as a public service, because I am all about public service, I will drop this message. If you are cold, they are cold. Please do not leave your spouse, partner, bed buddy, main squeeze, side piece, he, she, his, her, they, it or whatever you call them. Bring them indoors.

Friends of mine related bad, terrible, or horrible experiences they had with Uber or Lyft. I have been taking, more Ubers this past year. I only had a few bad experiences. One was partially the driver’s doing, as they got lost, because Uber’s GPS turned off. I have been lucky, as there are four drivers who became regulars if they are near my home. It is almost like having a private car service.

I also use Curb when I need to take a cab. There are some places, like the West Loop and Near West Side, where there are few Ubers and fewer cabs. Sometimes CURB is less expensive than Uber. But the cab drivers have different ways of getting me where I am going. Sometimes they take the really long way. I am never in a hurry. I only have two speeds, slow and stop. They never listen when I tell them the faster way to go. However, their fare is locked in. When they go way off out of the way, they lose two to four times what the fare should have been. Their loss, not my problem.

I always hear, read about, and occasionally experience bad customer service. So, I was surprised at the bank that services my mortgage. I did not get my escrow adjustment refund. The only snag was trying to get a human on the phone. After some frustration, I pressed whatever for something else. Voila, a human. I explained my issue. They did send the check a month earlier. Since it had not been cashed, he canceled it, issued a new one, and said to expect it in two weeks. Three days later, the check was in my mailbox. By the way, this bank was supposedly known for its bad to horrible customer service.

As I write this, I am sitting in a bar, my favorite office away from home. Every Sunday, I have one Bloody Mary before switching to beer. Brittaney, the bartender, makes good ones. Today, she outdid herself, as you can see from the picture below.

The game of fake food ball was on. The Eagles and 49ner Ken Dolls were vying for the phony Super Bowl. I never saw such good choreography outside of a ballet or theater. Geez, they do not even hide the fact the game is one big gazillion-dollar fraud. There are fans in the bar from both sides rooting for their favorite Ken Dolls. What a bunch of backwoods peckerheads. But I hope the Philadelphia Ken Dolls win so they can go to the NFL’s Dancing with the Stars next month.

Last, a bold, brazen crime was committed by the criminals that Superintendent David Brown and Mayor Lori Lightfoot ignore as if they do not exist. Only this time, the victim was the Chicago Police Department. Thieves stole the catalytic converters from five trucks belonging to the Mounted Unit. Their headquarters are at the original stables at the South Shore Cultural Center. With the trucks out of commission, so are most of the Mounted Unit. The horses cannot be deployed until the trucks are repaired. Not even police vehicles are safe in Chicago.

Thank you Mayor Lightfoot, David Brown, Kim Foxx, and Toni Preckwinkle for making Chicago the laughing stock of the nation. I imagine Tex Brown will spew some XXX data porn for the puerile Chicago news media to claim crime is down to historic lows at the Mounted Unit headquarters, like the rest of the lies he tells about crime in this city.

The questions are: How did the thieves get in unseen? Are there cameras in the lot? Was anyone on duty providing site security? Will heads roll? Or will Lightfoot finally realize David Brown should saddle up his nag and ride back to Texas, where he belongs, in a retirement home for mercenaries.

Have a good week. Stay warm, dry, and safe.

“You got keys?” one of them asks before agreeing to hold the victim’s pizzas so the man can dig his keys out of his pocket.

“You good?” a carjacker asks, returning the pizzas after the man surrenders the keys.

“I’m good,” he replies.

“All right, thank you,” replies one.

“Thank you, sir,” says another.

“You betcha,” replies the victim as he takes a long drag from a cigarette, then walks away.” (CWBChicago)

The above conversation was a carjacking by very polite criminals armed with handguns and a rifle. This was one of some oddball crimes in this crime-ridden city.

What started as a vehicle theft in Rockford turned into another oddity. The vehicle that was stolen is owned by a funeral parlor. There was a dead body in the rear. Chicago Police recovered the van on the Southside. on the Southside. The body was not in the van in the van. The body was discovered on the street over two miles away.

In another strange crime, a man returned home after running errands. He saw his garage door open and a stranger standing in the garage. The victim did what any self-respecting Chicagoan would do. He grabbed a sword and held the burglar at sword point until police arrived. The police found the victim’s power tools in the burglar’s bicycle basket. (CWBChicago)

In a court case, a public defender described the crime as an act of poverty. The judge who stated the attorney was insulting poor people upbraided the lawyer. The attorney apologized.

Our mayor entered the fray of odd criminality with her solution to prevent robberies. Street vendors in Pilsen and Little Village are being victimized by armed robbers. Our illustrious mayor’s solution was to tell them not to make cash transactions and use other transaction services. She is so disconnected from the city’s communities she does not realize these vendors, mostly immigrants, probably do not have checking accounts.

Most of the other candidates for mayor had no real solutions to crime. Their fairy tale ideas would put more people in danger. Most of the candidate, including Lightfoot, are delusional when it comes to crime and public safety.

The Chicago Police and Cook County Sheriff’s departments are partnering to help citizens to prevent auto and catalytic converter thefts. Police districts will have events to distribute steering wheel locking devices and information on how to protect your vehicle from being stolen. The two departments are working with manufacturers to register people for the Tracked Vehicle Program. You can read more about that in the link below.

As car thefts spike in the Chicagoland area, the agencies offer motorists steering wheel locks, tracking registration and helpful hints on how to keep property secure.

Chuck Adamson was a retired Chicago Police Sergeant of Detectives, an actor, scriptwriter, and television producer. He was involved in writing episodes of Miami Vice, and movies Thief, A River Runs Through It, Top Cops, The Stand, Quiz Show. He was the creator of the television Crime Stories, starring his friend and retired Chicago Police Officer Dennis Farina. He consulted on many other film projects.

I came across this video, which outlines how Heat was based on one of Adamson’s more famous cases. The video tells the story better than I or anyone else can.

“Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

   Bareheaded,

   Shoveling,

   Wrecking,

   Planning,

   Building, breaking, rebuilding” (Chicago/Carl Sandburg)

Carl Sandburg published his poem Chicago in 1914. It was a perfect description of the city at that point in history. He would write several similar poems about his adopted city. The city has not changed much. Chicago is still Sandburg’s “City of big shoulders.”

Most of the smokestacks are gone, as well as most of the famed stockyards. There is no longer a haze over the city from industrial pollution. Various strides in technology and science changed how we produce and build. We can build faster and safer than in the past. Even in winter, as long as the weather is not arctic, construction goes on. Buildings go up.

If you live in Chicago, you cannot be nostalgic about places. Chicago is always razing, building, rebuilding, and repurposing structures.

Some jobs still require brawn and sweat. That will never change unless or until robots replace people doing dirty work. Construction, destruction, and new construction are cyclic in Chicago. Chicago is still a city of hard work and hard workers. They build, raze, and toil in grit and dust. Some jobs still create the grit and dust of the past. That will never change.

There is still a sign Chicago is a blue-collar construction city. Look at all the cranes reaching to the sky being used to erect tall buildings. Construction sites are all over the city, from small projects to high-rise skyscrapers.  People with hard hats and tools abound.

There is noise. Clanging, crashing, causing, banging, whirring, sawing, and engines running, to name some. Those noises are the sound of money. Money for landowners, developers, architects, designers, construction material companies, tradesmen, and laborers.

Living in Chicago is living with change. We learn to shrug our shoulders and get used to it. Things change so fast that there is no time for nostalgia. Fortunately, there are photographs, leaving a historical record of the past. Preservationists fight many losing battles to keep buildings, small and large, from the wrecker’s ball.

Residential neighborhoods change on a smaller scale. Where single-family homes or small apartment buildings once stood, McMansions replace them. This is ongoing across the city. Neighborhoods gentrify and lose their personality to new inhabitants. Destruction, hole digging, foundation laying, and construction of multimillion-dollar homes are the norm in some neighborhoods. Sometimes life long residents are forced to move out because of economic changes, including higher and sometimes unaffordable property taxes.

Some call all this destruction and construction progress. Others call it greed. Yet, it is an ongoing fact of life in Chicago. Since the city was a trading post on a muddy swamp, people built, destroyed, and rebuilt. It was and is a never-ending process. Most of us shrug our shoulders and get used to it, except for road construction. That is something we never get used to it. It is more infuriating than unplowed streets in the winter.

Chicago fairy tales should begin with- “If elected, I promise…” Of course, there will be no happily ever after. No happy ending. Chicago politicians make big, bold promises, then break them. Take Mayor Lightfoot, for example.

Lightfoot released a 30-second fairy tale commercial, with a narrator touting her accomplishments to keep the public safe from violent crime. It is all gobbledygook. She failed and failed miserably in keeping the citizens of and visitors to this city safe. Her handpicked Police Superintendent, David Brown, is an abject failure. He does not know what he is doing, where he is at, or why he is here.. Every plan, strategy, scheme, and deployment failed. Since day one, he failed the citizens of this city

Lightfoot is hyping what she describes as a “Whole of government” approach- whatever that means- to criminality. Violent crime is rampant in everyone of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods and citywide on public transportation. We cannot believe the city’s numbers, as they can be massaged to make it look like crime is down. It has been done many times before.

Perception used to be more powerful than reality. In Chicago, perception is reality. People do not feel safe. The mayor does not make the public feel safe. People see the truth in their neighborhoods.

Some mayoral candidates promise to fire Brown on day one. Who ever they appoint will have an almost impossible job of correcting all of Brown’s failures while trying to get a handle on the day to day.

All the numbers and statistics Brown spits out to a press corp. that drools and slobbers over data and data analytics is pure garbage if there is no perception of safety by the public. If people live in fear, even if those numbers are spot on, they will not believe them. People are living in fear.

Even rideshare drivers avoid certain areas after dark, which is why there is surge pricing. They do not want to get carjacked, robbed, or injured. I talk to drivers all the time. Many times, they tell me I am their last ride for the day. More people I know are trying to get Concealed Carry Licenses. Some were the last people I thought would own a gun, let alone learn how to use one.

Postal workers are being robbed by armed offenders on their routes, something almost unheard of in the past. CTA personnel are being victimized. Some El lines are no longer safe to ride. Worse, just by being out and about, anyone can be the unintended victim of a violent crime by being hit by a stray bullet(s) from a pray and spray shooter.

Lori Lightfoot is in trouble. She alienated citizens across this city with her antics. She will try anything to hold on to the Fifth Floor of City Hall, even if it is dishonest or outright false, like the video. The one thing she will not do and should do is fire David Brown and send him packing back to Texas.

Time ran out for Lightfoot. The election is at the end of February. There is no way she can turn the public safety ship around in time. All she can do is hope. Hope enough people believe her lies. Hope some brutal weather comes in and stays around for a while. Hope the criminals give her a break and lie low until after the election. She hopes there is not a murder that will attract national attention and shed a national spotlight on her failures. Hope election turnout is low, favoring the incumbent.

One of her opponents should air their own fairy tale. “Once Upon a Time In Chicago.” Like Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in America and Once Upon a time in the West” movies,. They can show the gritty good, bad, and ugly of this once great city.

All we, the citizens, can hope for, is to get through each day without being the victim of a violent crime. Those odds fluctuate by the hour and day. Once upon a time Lightfoot was elected as a mayor and historic figure. If reelected, she promises…